They say confession is good for the soul, so here I go. I am not always the student I should be. I procrastinate; I let life get in the way of doing all I need to do to live up to my potential. And, let’s face it, sometimes life gets in the way all by itself with no prompting from me.

Before the first test of the semester, Nana Bagwell passed away. She was not a blood relative, but a woman who had a major influence on my life, and her funeral was the day before the test. I flunked miserably. Then, a tornado hit our house on Ash Wednesday before our second test on Monday. I passed by the skin of my teeth, but I’m still a couple of points away from passing at midterm.

I’m pretty sure that I am not the only student at Georgia Highlands in this situation. I can tell you that I don’t intend for this situation to continue, and I have a couple of things that will help me and readers too.

On the last test I took, I knew the material. But while I marked the correct answers on the test, I marked the wrong choice on the Scantron form. I will never again turn in another test without checking all my Scantron answers against the answers I marked on the test. Lesson one learned.

I also procrastinate and don’t usually really study much for a test until the week before and sometimes not until the weekend before. Our next test is a month away, and I’ve already started studying hard for it. This way, if I have some major life event or catastrophe strikes, I will be ahead of the game. Lesson two learned.

When I study, I study smart. I look for the most important information in the PowerPoint and think, “Is the information here something that is central to nursing practice and patient care?” I usually am right about what will be on the test more than 80 percent of the time.

I also have a couple of people that I study with. When we disagree on some point, we look it up. When I have to defend a viewpoint to others, I learn whether I am getting the main points of the material or not. Lesson three learned.

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The “Six Mile Post Online” is produced by the students of Georgia Highlands College. As a designated public forum, its content is the responsibility of the student editors and does not represent the opinions of Georgia Highlands College or the University System of Georgia.